


Half-Step In Another Life

by GraveyardDisco



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Video Game World, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Team Bonding, background other bandom members, video games - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:24:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21508099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraveyardDisco/pseuds/GraveyardDisco
Summary: The online MMORPG of Danger Days holds many secrets beneath its code. It's players are unaware of just how much this game truly knows them.Gerard Way hates the way he looks and wishes to be someone else, and that comes in the form  of Danger Days. Online, he can be Party_Poison, leader of the guild The Killjoys, and that brings him solace.Player Fun_Ghoul also hides many secrets. He knows this game more than all of them, but will not tell them why.
Relationships: Frank Iero/Gerard Way
Kudos: 16





	Half-Step In Another Life

“Fuck!”

Desert sands gave way to a bleak sky and the glare of a colorless sun. Dust rippled in the wind like a disturbed pond, figures obscured as moving shapes. There’s the constant low hum of far-off vehicles and scattered footsteps, and it all adds to the dust drifting through the open landscape.

The keeper of the outcry stumbled out of the shifting mass of dust, drawing his zapper from his side-holster, and taking wild aim into the unknown form behind him. He shifted his feet in the sands, steadying his stance against the growing sound. Shaking stringy red hair from his face, he takes in the scene.

After a few minutes the cloud almost seems to shatter as the rumble reaches the edge. An angry scrape of metal and a car emerged, passengers with guns at the ready, returning the fire.

The lone man pushed his aviator goggles onto his eyes and takes better aim, this time hitting the front tire of the quickly approaching vehicle. He panicked for a second, as the car keeps moving, and ducked out of the way of laser beams directed toward him. 

He dropped to a knee off the road and sends a hail of shots into the car once more. Answering gunfire hit his form and he wavered, pausing to pull something out of his vibrant blue jacket. A moment later the object landed a few feet away and explodes, sending a violent yellow flare up to the bleak sky. 

“Hurry the hell up!” He seemed to shout at nothing, gaze off from the Dracs’ steady approach. The red indicator on his blaster blinked for a moment, and he fumbled a new power pack into place.

The car’s passengers didn't acknowledge the disturbance, and have almost reached the figure by the time an answering bang resounds. The car is thrown off track then, the force of a rocket launcher more powerful than a laser blast. 

A different car raced into view, much faster than regulation, and its white finish dusted in contraband and individuality. A stone-faced man leaned out of the window, zapper in one hand and the other steadying the wheel. A young girl leaned out the other window, a rocket launcher almost larger than her in her hands, and a grin on her face.  
“Hail! Party Poison, coming in hot!”

The young girl shouts over the roar of engines, and Party Poison waves to the call of his name. 

“Hey there little dust angel, took you long enough! These Dracs are itching for a show.”

Crimson haired and full of equal fire, Poison once again faces the oncoming patrol, this time joined by backup. 

\----

Poison slammed the car’s trunk, just to hear the sound fill the empty desert air. He pockets the stolen cans and they dissolve into inventory items, becoming numbers that dance at the edges of his vision. 

“Ok that's 4 cases of cans, 2 boxes of parts, and 6 vials of _something_ being transported. We'll have to check that against Tommy’s records later.”

Kobra Kid nods, screwing up his face, thinking. 

“You know if you don't fix your face it'll stick that way, little dude.”

Poison chortled when Kobra flips him the bird in response. 

Kobra pushed his sunglasses higher on his face before pulling out a handheld scanner, nodding at the flashing numbers before passing it to Poison. 

“That should be the last of this wave, and we’ve got the call-in from Sandman to confirm it. They didn’t even get past Zone 4 this time.” Kobra pointed at the messages from Sandman in time with his words.

Poison grinned, “I bet you ten carbons there’s a shift on flipside and the tunnels to match!”

The Girl pokes his elbow, “The events always correspond, silly!”

Poison mimes shushing her, and in a stage whisper “But Kobra doesn’t know that! And this way I have ten more carbons from my knucklehead bro.”

Kobra rubs at his eyes under the sunglasses, “Woe is me, the wool pulled over my eyes, and ten carbons exchanged in our _shared account_.”

\-----

Gerard stood in his usual wallflower state, as he did most parties he had the displeasure of attending. He nursed another small sip of unidentifiable intoxicant from his plastic cup, cringing at the taste but tolerating for the sole purpose of a clouded mind.

He really did need the distraction. Perhaps Mikey was right. He pushed stringy black hair away from his face and sighed. He observed the moving teenage bodies, the partygoers filling the basement living room with the smell of cheap beer and sweat. 

A guy a bit younger than Gerard started to approach him and Gerard quickly revised his previous thought. No, Mikey was definitely wrong, and socialising was not on Gerard’s to-do list today.

Gerard wished he wasn't here, sticking out like a sore thumb among the confident, alcohol-saturated people. Gerard rubbed a hand over his face, peeking out between his fingers. Damn it the guy was still looking at him.

“Hi! I haven't seen you around at these sort of events, who are you?” The hot-punk-guy said, not unkindly. He shook half shaved dark hair out of his face and genuinely looked like he was interested in a response.

“Yeah, I don't usually attend ‘these sort of events’, my brother just suggested I go find something to do while I stand here and pretend to be his chaperone. I'm Gerard.” Gerard eyed him shiftily, trying to judge his character from eyeliner-rimmed hazel eyes and glinting piercings. He was still hesitant to give out his name anyway, but it was too late now. Gerard crossed his arms against his chest, hoping the pose would give off a subconscious ‘please leave me alone’.

“Well, attending a party like this sure is something to do, but I assume you're referring to the booze in your hand?” This was presumably a rhetorical question as the guy kept talking, “So what sort of things do you do then, Gerard?”

If Gerard didn't know any better, he’d think he was being chatted up. He did know better though, Gerard tended to repel any advances, friendly or otherwise, with his greasy hair and reclusive attitude. 

“Well, I've got a WizardSphere console that I use for gaming. I tend to spend a lot of time on that.” Gerard only noticed how nerdy that sounded a moment later, and tried to save it saying, “It's in VR, you know, virtual reality? I swear it's cool.”

 _Damn his alcohol-loosened tongue_.

The guy laughed, shaking his head, “No, no, that sounds great actually! What sort of games do you play?” 

Gerard thought for a moment, weighing the pros and cons of telling a total stranger his gaming habits. He seemed like a nice enough guy, after all.  
Gerard took another sip from his cup, already planning his next few sentences.

“Well, I'm fond of-”

“My god, fond. Who even uses that anymore?”  
The hot-punk-guy scoffed at him, and Gerard is not even a sentence in to explaining, _what the fuck_.

“Shut up asshat, you probably overuse yo on a daily basis. Let me finish.”

The guy just smirked to his response, happily settling into their back and forth mood. 

“My favorite is probably this game called The Danger Days, it's pretty immersive and has lots of action and raids to fill time. It's multiplayer and I would rather be there for “socialising”, but hey, this place has alcohol, a distraction like no other.”

“Well the game sounds cool, I'll have to check it out!” the guy did look excited, at least. He was either very good at making fun of Gerard and hiding it well, or he was just an easily excitable person.

“Yeah, maybe I'll see you around,” Gerard said, fully intending to never see the skinny punk kid ever again.

\---

Party_Poison logged on to the game, checking his stats for a moment before emerging from the break room of the diner. It was force of habit to check, the game was always updating and changing mechanics.

A transmission rung out across the server: _Listen up, the S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W/ Unit is on the move, buzzing down Route Petrichor. We have several reported sights of activity in Zone 4. So if any of you motorbabies are hanging around there, I suggest you ghost yourselves before you get dusted for good_. 

A regular transmission by the legendary player, Doctor Death Defying. He took advantage of the game's built in radio broadcast network along with the fully immersive compatibility to create a pirate radio station. He, and other members of his crew, would fill the empty desert with songs and the occasional warning that any zonerunner with an antenna and some tech smarts could latch on to. 

Party tapped the speaker thoughtfully, turning over the broadcast words in his head. The sun filtered through the dusty cracked windows, throwing odd shadows across the radio dials.

Aw shit, he and Kobra were in Zone 4. They'd have to ghost or transfer Zones. But they were so far out, it would be a shame to lose progress. Ghosting it was then. 

Party walked more into the open front room of the diner, taking note of Kobra Kid’s sour expression as he scooped more Power Pup into his mouth. This was accompanied by mutters of _‘looks so gross, why no other health regen, damn hunger bar, and damn Better Living,’_

Poison cleared his throat, drawing Kid’s attention away from his sorry meal. “As I'm sure you've heard from the transmission, we've got ‘Crow units heading our way, and we are very outclassed by them. So that means we’re ghosting until they pass.”  
Kobra dropped his Power Pup with a clank, “No come on, I hate that place! It's dangerous, It's corrupting. You remember what happened before, we can't spend too much time there. Getting lost is never an option.” This was accompanied by a pointed expression. “Isn't logging off the logical solution?”

Poison fixed him with a frown, playing the possibilities in his head to formulate the best answer. “You and I both know that logging out is the coward’s way out. Black Parade may be creepy, but it's better than missing the event that's sure to follow the S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W/. Either way, we're not sticking around here. I don't want to get dusted back to Checkpoint 6 and lose our progress and rankings.”

Kobra frowned, idly scratching the diner table. He looked to be running through possible ideas, but Poison knew it to be the best option. 

“See you on the other side, guess,” Kobra said, drawing his token from the inner pocket and resting it on his thumb.

Party echoed his actions, “May the Phoenix Witch rest our souls.”

After 3 seconds, they both flipped the tokens.

Ghosting over to the Black Parade effectively removed them from the Drac radar, but it was different from leaving the game entirely, or dying by the hand of BL/ind. Using your token wouldn't dust you back to a checkpoint, it would just flip you over to _this_ place. 

As interconnected they were, Danger Days and Black Parade were entirely different. One, with bleak landscape and pops of color brought by players, guns and cars and fast paced battles. The other, towering black buildings with rubble and discarded objects littering the alleyways, ghost-like people wandering the shifting maze of streets.  
You couldn't progress in one world without Ghosting to the other, interconnecting player web reaching farther into the center of each map. 

In Danger Days, the treacherous mystery that was Battery City, and in Black Parade, the whispers of something called The Heart. Each sat in respective centers, unreached by players as of yet. 

Around him the buildings stood tall in silent solidarity, reaching up like crystalline fingers toward the empty void of sky. Ash flitted through the air, giving movement to the near-abandoned scene. Faded blimps lazed about, high above the line of the city.

Gerard glanced at his avatar’s reflection in the glass panels, so different from Party Poison’s dust ravaged appearance on the flip side. Short cropped white hair was a sharp contrast to fire-truck red, and subtle skull makeup altered his usual face in a colorless facade. 

He brushed off the shoulders of his military jacket, cleaning dust that wasn't there. A quick look around the shadowed alleyway he landed in informed him of the lack of a Mikey-shaped figure. He must have appeared a bit farther away, then. 

Someone bumped into him from behind and Gerard turned quickly. A man just a tad shorter than him was looking up apologetically. His skull painted face was drawn in a small smile,“Sorry man, black jackets you know, blending into buildings and stuff.”

Gerard took in his appearance, noting the black jacket similar to his own but with more striped patterns on the sleeves. The only color he had was sharp hazel eyes that glinted behind swooping black bangs. Shining something vague and familiar.

Gerard waved away his apology, completely understanding. “Yeah, don't worry about it dude. This whole place blends together. Like.. like a mirage of beautiful terror.”

The other man nodded appreciatively at the description, “Yeah that's like, exactly it. This place is one spooky bitch.”

A crumpled newspaper tumbled past, blown about by a phantom wind. Gerard snatched it out of the air, and flattening it out so his companion could read also. In Danger Days, you had the radio, but here the reports all came from randomly generated old-timey newspapers. 

_Attention, attention! The starboard wall of Sector L is under collapse! Flipside on 4 is compromised on Route Revolution, and 8 zonerunners have been dusted to the Checkpoint. So far no one is gone on reset, but we will keep you updated here at Phantom Press._

“Damn, man that sucks. I had a friend running around Zone 5, think he's gonna get hit when the ‘Crow wanders his way?

Gerard shook his head, “He will if he’s near Route Revolution or Inquire Pass, but otherwise he should be fine. Besides, most of the hangouts in 5 are farther away than that. I think the event will fizzle out soon anyway, they already got 8 of us.”

The other man nodded, content with the answer. 

“Ok, I have to go find my brother now, but i’ll see you around, yeah?” 

Gerard begins to skirt to the exit of the alleyway, waiting for a response before truly leaving the soot-lined streets behind. 

“‘Course man. See you on the flip side!”

\---

Gerard watched everything fade to gentle black around him, patient as the WizardSphere whirred and clicked in his orbit, slowly shutting down and compacting. As soon as the exterior apparatus finished folding, Gerard pulled the headset off his head, brushing sweaty strands of hair that fell into his face. He unzipped and peeled away the NerveSuit, grimacing as it tried to stick to his skin. The jumpsuit-like garment got thrown in a corner of the already cluttered basement where he resided, and he stretched, muscles sore from the exercise of the day.

The WizardSphere worked in a 3 part fashion. The floor, a complex tessellating tile system, moved when you do, much reminiscent of old treadmills. The frame, a overreaching arm-like structure, suspended a harness just above the floor. And the exoskeleton, a combination of the NerveSuit and headset, a jumpsuit of diodes running through it like veins bringing haptic feedback pulses like touch, and a helmet of speakers and screens. All together, it was like a portal to another world.

Gerard had worked so many jobs for this thing, so many. Even for the most common version of the console, tinkered to the extreme to try and be higher class, was still a lot of money.

He sighed and rubbed his temples, internally cursing at the chime of his phone. It was beeping something awful, the only thing Gerard could set it to to bring him out of the game with any haste. It had sent signals to the machine in time with the chirps, just to make sure he could hear whoever was calling. 

They had called thrice by the time Gerard made it across the metaphorical battlegrounds of the messy basement and over to the bed where the phone lay, tossed carelessly. He answered it with a click.

“What.” So maybe he sounded snappish. He interrupted his game for this, he was tired, maybe a bit crabby.

“It's Ray! Hello!”

Ray’s not a bad guy, genuinely nice actually, but Gerard was not feeling nice, just tired. 

“It's about Danger Days,” and Gerard felt suddenly nicer at those words. “Like I know this is your usual Draculoid Grind time and all, but I was reading the blogs and I've found some very important theories to discuss.”

“Well spill the beans, Toro. I'm always a slut for theory.”

“I was scanning the usual pages, and a few people have independently come to the same conclusion. They're about to do something big. Real big.”

“Who, the players? Come on man, spit it out!”

“No, the game!”

He could see it in his mind, the expansion opportunities. What things they might add next. There was such a _potential_ for something to happen. So many loose ends. The Tunnels, the Hidden pop-up shops, the lost files, all with more detail. 

“Holy smokes, I hope so.”

“So basically, the Scarecrows are getting more and more frequent, the events have been getting bigger, it all has to be leading up to something! I should send you some of the theories, man. They get pretty in-detail about the whole thing.”

Gerard smiled, “Heck yeah!” He glanced to the wall clock, trying to remember what he was forgetting. “Sorry, I have to go now, but yeah! Send me some links, man.”


End file.
